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The Bloody Crow of Cainhurst is an enemy hunter in Bloodborne, and is the last enemy to be faced as part of Eileen the Crow's questline.

Description

The Bloody Crow of Cainhurst is a hunter who has presumably gone mad with bloodlust, and as a result became a target of Eileen the Crow. However, in her old age, she proved to be no match for him in combat, as the player finds her in a pool of her own blood, barely alive on the steps leading up to the entrance of the Grand Cathedral.

Location

Once the player has defeated Rom, this character can be found at the Grand Cathedral if you helped Eileen defeat Henryk earlier at the Tomb of Oedon, and she survived.

Can this NPC be an ally?: No

Can this NPC be an enemy?: Yes

Drops: If killed, he will give 6,238 blood echoes and the +3 Blood Rapture rune. If the player already has this rune they will be given a Great One's Wisdom.

Strategy

Standard Strategy

This battle is very difficult to take on solo, as he is capable of dealing massive damage up close, as well as from distance, and has quite a substantial pool of health (~4160, needs confirmation). He makes frequent use of the Hunter's Bone, and will also begin throwing Numbing Mist at you in the later stages of the battle. He is also able to heal by using a blood vial, which he will usually do when he drops between 30%-50% health.

He begins the battle one-handing the Chikage, and will switch between this and the transformed Chikage, which deals poison damage to him as long as he has it in trick mode. It appears as though he avoids transforming and taking poison damage after he has used his blood vial and his health drops around the 30% mark (Can confirm, at 30% or lower he does NOT use Chikage's trick form, he will proceed to attack in a more defensive manner).

As long as he has the repeating pistol out, you must be ready to dodge because it deals tons of damage. He tends to fire following a quickstep, so it is a good idea to quickstep yourself immediately after you see him quickstep just in case he follows it up with a shot. Also, attempting to stunlock him can prompt him to fire in retaliation if he is able to get a shot off between your attacks, which will likely parry you. In one of the few examples of its usefulness, the Wooden Shield may be used to mitigate much of the damage he can do if he connects with his pistol, but well timed/directed dodges should be enough, and putting on armor with high Blood defence (eg. White Church set) before this battle is worth consideration.

He will come at you with a variety of moves in the Chikage moveset, switching between two-handed and one handed forms, and using the Hunter's Bone to quickly close the distance on you, so you must remain equally mobile. Every now and then he will wind up with a heavy attack, sometimes fully charged, sometimes not, but baiting out these attacks will allow you to either attempt to parry, or swoop in for a quick strike or two. However, he will punish you for getting greedy with trying to stunlock him, or attempting to jump attack from distance, as he will quickly deliver strikes with his Chikage if you run out of stamina, or are left vulnerable following the jump attack.

Due to the hazard he poses at close range, employing weapons with a decent amount of reach such as the Transformed Hunters Axe or Threaded Cane can provide an extra layer of safety as you can land hits from distance and slowly whittle him down. Poison knives, if timed right, can also deal damage for you if you are able to connect with three of them.

Although a straight-on fight with him is possible, you can give yourself an advantage by luring him into the stairwell. This limits his angle of attack to directly in front of you if you maintain medium range, and also allows you to quickly dart out of the Cathedral to heal up from safety, or even swap out weapons/equipment if you need to. One particular method involves exploiting his approach patterns with well timed charged R2 attacks of long-reach weapons, such as the transformed Hunter's Axe, or Ludwig's Holy Blade. Based on whether he is running, or walking towards you, charge up your attack so that he basically walks right into it as he prepares to attack you. However, this obviously will leave you open for punishment if mistimed. In addition, he may dash through the attack if the Hunter's Bone is active, and as a result, the Hunter's Axe double spin gives you an added layer of security, since the second spin will connect if he dashes through the first.

Whatever strategy you choose to employ, you will want to be well stocked on vials, and be patient no matter how low his health is, because one moment of recklessness can mean your death due to the insane amount of damage he can dish out.

Ranged Strategy

Alternatively, you can cheese him by using a combination of Poison Knife and Numbing Mist, as he can be poisoned with three knives. You may also blast him with Cannon if you have 4 Bone Marrow Ashes and having all three Formless Oedon Runes equiped. For Arcane users, either Tiny Tonitrus or Executioner's Glove would serve the same purpose. This is especially useful as he gets low on health and stops tricking the Chikage, and Tiny Tonitrus can effectively be used up to 29 times with all the Formless Oedons equipped thanks to blood bullets.

If none of the previous strategies of cheesing this jerk to death appeal to you, you can try a stunlock strategy centered around Beast Roar. Equip Beast Roar and a fast-attacking weapon such as the untransformed cane or one of the silver swords. This will only work if you lure him into a corner. The best place to do this is right near the doors to the cathedral: The half-opened door and the wall form a little triangular funnel that is perfect for keeping him in place. Induce him to follow you as far down the stairs as you can before he starts moonwalking back up. He probably won't move all the way to the doors so once he is as close as you can get him, run around behind him so you're facing the doors and use Beast Roar to knock him back and down. Ideally, you'll be able to use a couple Beast Roars to push him into the three-sided corner formed by the wall and one of the cathedral doors. Once he's stuck in that corner, get in close and hit him with quick-striking light attacks over and over until your stamina is nearly depleted. Then, use Beast Roar to knock him down. Make sure the movement caused by your attacks don't put you behind him or to the side, or the Beast Roar will knock him free from the corner of death. If you position yourself right, you can get off at least 4-5 attacks depending on your stamina, Roar him to the ground (he won't have anywhere to be blown backwards to, so you can keep attacking him as he stands up) and repeat until he's dead. To make sure you have enough bullets to keep this strategy up until he's dead, bring the Formless Oedon rune. Beast Roar can also be used to push him out of the Cathedral doors. The player can then stand in the entrance, blocking his path as he attempts to move back inside. At this point he is completely vulnerable to attacks and will not fight back or heal. If he gets back inside, chances are you won't have enough bullets left to repeat this strategy so care should be taken to keep him outside.

Patience Strategy

Even though you can kill this overpowered NPC character with ranged attacks you can also, if you are willing, kill him by taking your time. The newest patch prevents you from cheesing him by abusing his Chikage poison damage so you need to choose other options, unless you are overleveled. This strategy consists of keeping away from the NPC, attacking sparingly and letting the NPC whittle away his HP each time he uses the Chikage transformation. Quickstep is important, keep strafing and be careful of his gunshots. The NPC will use his Chikage transformation from time to time and whittle away his HP. Parry him when you can and use a visceral attack to punish him. Do not get greedy and try to hurt him since he will more than likely parry you and one shot you with a visceral attack.

Take care to avoid his Numbing Mist when he starts using them because you will need to, inevitably, heal. He will, as said before in the page, use a Blood Vial once, but do not despair. Tolerate this and keep using this strategy. As said before, quickstep and strafe, quickstep when he does or you will most likely get shot and take tremendous amounts of damage. The Chikage poison damage will do the work for you. Attack from time to time. There is no need to take the fight to the Boss when he will do the work for you. It should not be said but Blood Vials are a must here. To use this strategy strafe around the room, take your time, let the Boss hurt himself and do not get impatient or he will punish you. Try to bait the Boss to use the transformation, this is the trick to the strategy. Patience Strategy Addendum It's possible to cheese him in an alternative way. First, draw him out to the cathedral entrance. Due to his program he will continue to walk towards you despite the fact that he can't cross the threshold of the Cathedral entrance. Now, look to either side of the entrance at the statues of the Amygdala and notice the line of stones that extend from right in fron of the statues. Using a long weapon (rifle spear for my playthrough) it is possible to R2 attack him from safety without him being able to hit or shoot you, provided you backstep away after each attack and maintain his view so that his gunshot would hit the wall in front of him. You will be unable to lock on, so a trial-and-error of hitting him is required. It's possible to use the monocular to aid with aiming. It is also possible to get him stuck in the hinges of the doors or on the statues in the stairway inside the cathedral, but he is unlikely to maintain this stuck position for very long. The room is enormous. Use this. Strafe and quickstep. Keep away from the Boss. The poison damage will eventually kill him or give you the opportunity to kill him yourself. This will take time so do not expect to kill him quickly.

Simon's bowblade strategy

Another simple strategy requires the use of Simon's bowblade. If the player has acquired the bow by the time the fight occurs, an easy cheese strategy can be achieved. Simply kite him towards the cathedral steps and go far enough down that he has to retreat back to the inner parts of the cathedral. While retreating up the steps, shoot at him with the bow.

Doorjam Aggro

If you can draw the Hunter down the stairs and through the main doors, he will still attack up until the absolute edge of the Cathedral building. But physically cannot step out. By moving just to the left of the door, he can become "wedged" in the small triangle of space between the door and the edge of the foundation. Using a weapon such as the Threaded Cane, you can safely continue to hit him and draw his attention, while keeping the thick door of the Cathedral and the Pillar on it's left between the two of you. If he retreats inside, fire a bullet, or strike with the Cane to clip him through the door and cause him to charge again. This strategy is incredibly cheap, but nearly 100% safe once you reach the door, you can stay to the left, and continue an almost constant barrage of attacks, while being shielded from his counters and bullets.

The Poison Knives Strategy

This requires the least amount of skill, all you really need is 20 poison knives. Lure the hunter past the midpoint of the stairs, then wait for him to begin his retreat. NOTE: If he transforms the chikage, this makes it much faster. Upon his retreat he dodges much less. Use three poison knives to poison him, and wait. He appers to only have one blood vial, so you can let him use it or throw some numbing mist to stop his healing, but the numbing mist will likely wear of if you use this method of cheesing him right away. Otherwise, let him heal and re-poison him again. You will clearly need to poison him more than once due to his ludicrously massive health pool, so keep poisoning him, use the stairs and just wait.

Most non-invasive way of cheesing him

(note: this method takes 10-15 min and decent timing is required but I assure you this is one of the more tactical ways of fighting him) Prerequisites: 1. 10 molotovs (to use near end of fight) 2. 10 oil urns (to use near end of fight) 3. 10 throwing knives (to use near end of fight) 4. 20 blood vials 5. note in phase 2 (depending how accurate your attacks are but bring extra items (not pebbles) like pistol ammo (20 bullets) and a pistol/gun with decent damage to finish him at a range.) know that you should not engage him using this method will also make it less likely he will use pistol attacks

How to fight him: Phase 1 1st. Begin by entering by entering the cathedral then walk up to him then back away and be ready to dash back. When you hit the stairs after backing up he usually starts using the hunters bone (to evade his quick lunges when he has hunters bone active keep in his aggro (notice range) range but at a distance). 2nd. keep moving towards him then going back and forward up and down the stairs (if necessary outside the cathedral and then continue step) with him coming towards you and you stepping back when he tries to move forward. (note he has unlimited use of the hunters bone and roughly over 3000 health) your goal is to get close enough to make him switch his blade to extension mode (this mode causes him to lose health but gain damage) once he does keep on your toes by moving back as often and as quick as possible. 3rd. when he get to 1/3 or 1/2 of his health he will use blood vile once to heal then preceded with the same method till he gets back to 1/3 then precede to next phase. on the off but extremely rare chance he uses a second blood vile repeat this step and use caution. This phase should take approximately 10 minutes. Phase 2 When he is at 1/3 he goes into a unusual protection mode so he wont be using his sword extension mode anymore. At this point use the knives to damage him then use the Molotov`s. This should assuming you hit him with 2/3`s of all the per-requisite items kill him. otherwise if you missed some hits use the rest then your pistol and if absolutely necessary your main weapon to deal final or final 2 attacks to finish him. Assuming you did this correctly you wouldn't have to actually engage him and the only damage you might take is his pistol shots (they're pretty damaging). (note: depending how accurate your attacks are but bring extra items (not pebbles) like pistol ammo and a pistol/gun with decent damage to finish him. )

Blue Elixir Strategy

Right away as you pull him, kite him down the stairs. After he's on the stairs, dodge past him, and run to the end of the cathedral, behind where he spawns. Run to one of the two corners and use a Blue Elixir.At this point he should lose aggro, and go back to his normal position, where he'll now stand with his back turned against you, facing towards the entrance like he does when you start the encounter.All you have to do now is to sneak up behind him, use a charged R2 attack, and follow it up with a visceral. A backstab sequence if you will.This strat does depend on two things however.1. You gotta make sure he isn't running after you, but walking, when you're running to the back end of the cathedral. Every once in a while he'll run towards you to attack, but he usually just walks,which is what will allow you to make him lose aggro.2. You gotta have quite a few Blue Elixirs, and a hard hitting weapon, which you might not have yet, depending on how much of the game you've completed at this point.If you find yourself with only 3-4 Blue Elixirs, I'd recommend having him slowly kill himself with his' blade's trick mode, and using this strategy to kill of the remaining health after he stops damaging himself entirely.

Hide and Backstab Strategy

Almost identical to the method above but without the need for the Blue Elixirs:

Lure the Bloody Crow down the stairs, then run past him right to the back of the Grand Cathedral past the lamp and hide yourself behind one of the wall outcrops/pillars closest to the Cathedral altar. The Bloody Crow will de-aggro and walk back to his starting position.

When the Bloody Crow has returned to his starting position and turned his back to the lamp, walk up behind him and backstab for a visceral.

Have The Bloody Crow chase you to the stairs and repeat the method until dead. Recommended to equip as many Clawmark runes as possible to speed up the process

(Credit for this method to an anonymous user in comments section).

Slow Down Strategy

A strategy that I have found works for beating this monster of an enemy is to lure him to the stairs of the cathedral entrance (near Eileen).From here he will slow down, which you can bait him into Switching to Chikage's trick form, in his slow walking state this will hurt him very quickly.He may start de-aggro'ing and move towards his default position.You can throw projectiles at him( such as pebbles or molotovs) or approach him to lure him back towards the stairs.This next part is VERY important for cheesing him: His slow movement speed will make knocking him down for a visceral very easy. Preferably with a blunderbuss type weapon, as long as your using blood rupture (+200 hp) and runes that up visceral attack, this will speed up the process.Be warned that he occasionally uses his pistol, which can kill you point blank and you'll have to restart.My first successful attempt at beating him was this strat.

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Other Notes:

The wooden shield or loch shield will effectively trivialize his repeating pistol shots, and can be useful to a smaller extent against his chikage. The shields will reduce his damage from gunfire to mere chip damage, barely anything at all, and will reduce his chikage damage by a good portion, although you'd be best served by simply dodging against melee attacks. When a gunshot connects against a shield, stamina loss is minimal, and the player recovers very quickly. It was very useful in my fight with him in NG+. Against his chikage, the player will recieve somewhere between half and two thirds standard damage, and will drain stamina fairly quickly, which is a big problem, considering he'll just swing at you again and again and overwhelm your shield. It's best to dodge or keep your distance against melee attacks.

If you kill Rom before helping Eileen defeat Henryk, you will not be able to have this encounter. Instead, Eileen will turn against you at the Cathedral.

It was once possible to cheese him by exploiting a pathfinding glitch which caused him to get stuck behind the cathedral doors, leaving him vulnerable to attacks "through" the door with weapons like the transformed Threaded Cane. This was patched out as of version 1.04 however, so more legitimate approaches are necessary.

He can still be cheesed after 1.04 with a bit of luck. If he tricks Chikage and the player sprints out of the Cathedral, he will sometimes lose interest and forget to transform Chikage back, resulting in his eventual death thanks to the Chikage's self-damage.

Pathfinding isn't fixed as of 29/11-2015, managed to get him stuck on one of the side ledges going down the staircase towards the doors, his AI wasn't capable of walking him back off, so he ended just standing there staring.

Since he wears the crowfeather garb, it is possible that he either was a Hunter of Hunters and joined the Vilebloods, or killed one and took their garb. Regardless, he is hostile to all, so runes do not make a difference.

If you're having a hard time with this guy, try using a long range weapon. I originally used the Rakuyo and didn't stand a chance. But after switching to the Burial blade I beat him immediately. The fight was still incredibly intense and I still struggled alot but by timing charged R2 attacks at the right moment you can hit hard whilst keeping him at a distance.

Like how much health does this man have its seriously damn near broken. Ive beat him before but rn on my BL 38 this seems ridiculously unfair especially since ive been breezing through the game so far no trouble. The massive health pool with the gun spam that does INSANE damage and the instakill parry/visceral just seems a tad much. Also isnt it a bit strange that From makes this amazingly dynamic combat system with amazing weapons then essentially shows players all you gotta do is have high bloodtinge and spam your way to victory?

The best way for me was waiting for him to use his blood magic, as he will consume his hp himself, when he reaches 30% health he stops using it, then you fight safely using a high reach r2 attack. A assure it will be easy this way

To be honest 90% of his moves are fair and don't feel like bullshit. But the gun deals far too much damage, on my current run taking both bullets was enough to instakill me, which honestly feels super gimmicky and artificially increases the difficulty of the fight. I died to him 16 times, but 15 of these were him just shooting me after he rolled which was enough to bring my HP down from full to zero. Dodging the gunshots is super easy when he's just running towards you, but not after he rolls. The remaining one I took one bullet while attacking and he riposted me, but that one at least felt fair.

First,i cheesed him.But now i managed to take him down fair and square.

For me,i wear full knight set with hunter axe as main weapon,you can bring the shield if it really necessary for you.The trick is,use executioner gloves to create an opening,then dash in for 2 or 3 attacks before dashing away.When you got hit by his pistol at medium range,do not attempt to counter attack,he will parry and kill you easily.

When he switched to blood mode,this is your chance to unleash your fury upon him.Time your charge attack and be aware to not get caught in his combo

In the end,its his bullet that you have to watch for,and its recommended to bring weapon with wide/ long reach.I hope this helps

Ok, so i don't know how this happened, but I progressed through the game as normal, and i read that eileen would be at the top of the stairs. She wasn't, but i went in the cathedral anyway, and found the blood rapture rune +3 just sitting where the bloody crow would have spawned. I helped eileen with henryk as well, so idk why she didn't spawn, but more confusing still is the rune spawning as an item, like i killed him and reloaded. Did anyone else experience this or is it just me?

50 arcane and executioners gloves, overpowered him. Just kept using blood bullets every time I ran out, and healing. Took me not even two minutes to kill him. He transformed and couldn't change back because I just kept releasing the executioners gloves on him. I am having so much fun with this arcane build, first time using arcane. As of now no arcane weapons, only bolt and fire but still fun. Enjoy it more then bloodtinge build which was still lots of fun as well

This guy is harder than ANY boss in the entire game for me. He make's Maria and OoKs seem like a walk in the park. The fact he has a bloated HP, high damaging pistol, can parry you, and can heal just makes him challenging as hell. Still a fun fight but damn tough.

Soooo I managed to accidentally lure him outside the Cathedral doors and broke his AI enough that even the times he DID jump backwards through the gap he'd come charging at me straight through the doors again...and wouldn't back off.

Seriously, I was partway down the first set of stairs to avoid his gun while I waited for the Numbing Mist to wear off and he stood there, running in place. I managed to hock a few molotovs at him and whip him to death with my Threaded Cane lol

Its kind of a stretch but I have a theory that this is the person who brought foreign martial arts and practices to Cainhurst, who maybe later became a Hunter of Hunters (or heck, maybe even started the whole thing) with that crow getup being a "uniform" of sorts for it, but in his case still sporting Cainhurst armor. He's obviously a master, and someone even Eileen feared so he seemed to be a hunter of note.

the holy moonlight sword is very effective cuz it can shoost at him from good range. all you do is use the communion runes to have a bunch of bloodvials and make ur own bullets. i use this strat all the time and it works verry well

You can cheese him by luring him to the bottom of the steps and then running to the front of the cathedral and hiding behind a pillar. Wait for him to reset to standing in the middle and then creep up behind and backstab. Rinse, repeat